Why personalized marketing? Well, according to Sara Swenson, Manager of Analytics, emnos USA; and Erin Magnuson, Senior Consultant, emnos USA, personalized marketing is a crucial tool that paves the way toward customer loyalty.
Swenson and Magnuson discussed this theme during Thursday’s webinar, “Let’s Get Personal: Taking Your 1:1 Marketing from Simple to Sophisticated,” which was hosted by Loyalty360 and presented by emnos USA.
“Relevancy is really the key to personalization,” Swenson told attendees.
Consider this key statistic about personalized marketing: In 2013, 5% of offers consumers received were personalized; that figure will grow six times to 30% in 2017.
Here are a few more important statistics to consider:
60% say personalized coupons make shopping easier (They want to receive coupons for the products they already buy or would be interested in buying)
44% want to use coupons on their mobile phones
67% want coupons loaded to their loyalty cards
1:1 personalization allows suppliers to precisely target customers for acquisition
Lift in sales for personalized coupons is 30X that of non-personalized
Swenson and Magnuson offered five key principles for implementing a successful personalized marketing program:
Prioritize loyalty: Reward loyal customers; use personalized marketing to drive loyalty
“Building that foundation of customer loyalty doesn’t mean you have to have a formal loyalty program,” Magnuson explained. “Marketers have to have a mechanism in place to be able to identify who those high-value customers are.”
Engage suppliers: Shared retailer and supplier investment; focus on redemption & acquisition
Be relevant: Target at most granular level possible; customer behavior key targeting driver
Select right channel: Contact customers where engaged; convenient to use and timely delivery
Make it measurable: Long-term control group, analyze behavior, test & learn for continuous improvement
What’s more, they offered some tips for marketers focused on personalized marketing:
Reward best customers to drive greater customer loyalty
Customer data drives a mutually beneficial ecosystem for all key players
Deliver a better and more relevant customer experience through assortment, promotions, pricing, and personalized marketing
1:1 variable targeting is the basis of the emnos approach for delivering relevance
“If we want to build loyalty, we just have to have our high-value customers engaged,” Swenson said.
Segment-level targeting:
Audience: Good customers with either high prior spend or high potential within relevant categories or brands
Objective: Drive deeper customer engagement within specific retailer categories or divisions
Offers & Targeting: Fixed offer set with no variable targeting
Examples: Themed campaigns
Personalized targeting:
Audience: Most valuable customers
Objective: Thank and reward best customers, allowing vendor partners to drive a mix of retention and acquisition
Offers & Targeting: Large offer pool that is highly variable and targeted at 1:1 level
Examples: Thank & Reward and Best Customer campaigns
True personalization is critical in delivering customer relevancy, which drives strong participation rates and maximum sales uplift. SKU-level transaction data is key to identifying relevant offers or content when executing 1:1 personalized campaigns (based on past purchases and products they have a high propensity to buy).
Customer channel eligibility, according to Magnuson and Swenson, needs to be taken into consideration when establishing a relevant contact strategy: Email and digital channels allow for a higher frequency of touchpoints and volume of relevant offers/content at lower execution costs.
Here are some other key takeaways:
Many high-value customers are still only contactable via print
It's essential to understand multichannel customers’ engagement preferences and digital affinity prior to shifting them away from print (“Channel preference plays a huge role in understanding how to deliver that relevant offer to your best customers,” Swenson noted. “If you have the data, use it.”)
Monitor channel behavior
It’s also necessary to consider channel preferences and engagement prior to transitioning customer communication to digital channels
Communicating to the same customer through multiple channels has a cumulative effect on participation and redemption rates
Measurement and analysis against control group is an important benefit of personalized marketing programs
Testing provides a vehicle for evaluating offer level, campaign level and long-term performance